Sumar, the dominant force in the 2026 alliance, has seen its vote share more than halved since 2023 to 5%, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.
“Junior partners in any coalition tend to suffer because it’s difficult for them to implement their agenda and they tend to be less visible,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University.
Sumar has been lacking a high-profile figurehead. Yolanda Díaz, the labor minister and deputy prime minister who was once touted as a potential prime minister-in-waiting, is not running in the election.
The Broad Front ticket, Simón said, “is better than if there had been no agreement at all, but it’s still looking tough for them.”
Amid a last-minute scramble leading up to Friday’s midnight deadline for the registration of electoral alliances, hopes that Podemos, polling at around 3%, might join the ticket were dashed as talks ran aground over candidacies and the left-wing party’s concerns about being subsumed by the alliance.
Speaking the next day, Colau apologized to voters on the left for the lack of a deal with Podemos and, referring to the fraught negotiations, said that “if someone doesn’t want to sit down at a table, you can’t force them.”